Due to increase in life expectancy the number of aged are increasing throughout the world neurodegenerative disorders are the diseases of nervous system including brain, spinal cord and peripheral nerves. 10 percent of population over the age of 70 years has a significant memory loss out of which 50 percent cause is Alzheimer's diseases. The most common neurodegenerative disorders are Alzheimer's diseases (AD), Parkinson's disease (PD) and Huntington disease (HD). Protein aggregation oxidative stress, mitochondrial dysfunction and glutamate excito-toxicity are the bio-markers playing role in the process of neurodegeneration and death of neurons. Oxidative injury play a vital role in the degeneration and death of neurons. A number of reactive oxygen species (ROS) is found in the body with a wide variations in their site of formation, function and biological half life. An impaired uptake and increased accumulation of glucose and glutamate are found among AD and PD patients. It is reported that oxidative stress is not only related to protein aggregation rather is closely interrelated with mitochondrial dysfunction and glutamate excito-toxicity. The process of cell death also involves the excess release of inflammatory cytokines IL-6 and TNF-α. Thus a number of genetic and environmental factors play a role in the pathogenesis of neurodegeneration and neurodegenerative disorders. Senile dementia is characterized as loss of intellectual ability associated with old age like progressive deterioration in thinking, memory, behavior, personality and motor functions. Senile dementia is divided into two groups—                1. Dementia due to generalized atrophy (SDAT) and dementia due to vascular problems mainly due to strokes.        2. Depression, poor nutrition, drug poisoning, alcoholism, hyperglycemia, obesity, elevated homocystein etc., are the other causes of dementia.        
In senile dementia the patient's brain function gradually deteriorates showing progressive loss of memory and mental ability with noticeable personality changes. Initially short term memory is affected—like affected person forgets what happened hours or minutes ago, feels difficulty in working routine work. Patient lose interest in various activities, he suffers from a kind of physical instability and possess aggression in his/her behavior and also exhibit moral inhibition. Recent conventional pharmacological strategies for the management of neurodegenerative disorders have shown decrease in progression of disease process rather than cure of disease, but the results are not very satisfactory and thus their application is restricted, particularly in reference to aging population.
Ayurveda has described several medicinal plants under the concept Medhya-rasayana which refers to the agents acting on higher brain function by interacting on ability or power of acquisition (intelligence), ability or power of retention and ability or power of recall of memory by amelioration of seven Medha of the individuals. In Ayurveda several medhya rasayana drugs are kept under category of medhya which are responsible for facilitating learning and memory. Taking lead from ancient literature the present study was conducted in various experimental and clinical trials.